It was just brought to our attention through a news tip that some of the city's websites, including the two separate Lake/Everett roundabout project websites - Found at /LakeRoad (original) and lakeroadconstruction (second) - do not use HTTPS. It has not been made clear publicly why the city incurred the cost and confusion of a second project website for the same Lake/Everett project, especially puzzling when the original website has already been distributed and discussed for almost a year at this point?
HTTPS is the more secure type of website and every reputable company who's site you've visited for years now uses HTTPS. Outside of being insecure, not switching to HTTPS now has secondary impacts like lowering your webpage's ranking in search results like Google - which might be why a google search for "lake road construction" does not result in a link to cityofcamas.us/lakeroadconstruction, (on the first seven pages we checked at least). It can also make web pages entirely inaccessible in some browsers.
This article goes into this idea a bit. It's from a technology news site from back in 2018 when Google was first deciding to seriously enforce this needed enhancement that most had adopted, even back then. Back then, in July 2018, Google started to mark all unencrypted HTTP websites as “not secure,” in user's browsers (as you can see in the attached image when accessing city websites).
Who is missing the information on these pages due to the insecure management? And what is the city leaving us vulnerable to with this oversight?
By the way, look at these town's websites and look at ours.
We're paying millions to communications consultants over the years and we don't have a decent website next to towns 1/12th our size? Washougal's website looks great on initial glance and they have 10k less citizens than Camas. Our city's website would be a middling attempt in 1996 - why does it take this long for a city like Camas to value it's citizen's enough to invest in clear, modern communications?
Our council members talk about how we are going to attract large technology companies? You run a 1996 website and use HTTP - why would anyone who learned what council knows about technology as a collective body by the time they were 12 probably, trust you to understand and support their needs as a technological leader. The answer is they wouldn't and that's why they are leaving. You also can't record public meetings worth a hoot and you have Logitech - one of the world's leading video/audio conferencing technology companies in your backyard. You're either too stubborn to admit you're outside your capacity or you're not able to convince your own neighbor to help you shore that deficit.
Spending just five minutes on Ridgefield's website would make me think about moving there. Does anyone know about the ClearGov finance SW they use for their financials. Looks intriguing?
https://ridgefieldwa.us/government/city-departments/finance-department/cleargov/
Just more and more and more everyday :(
Read this in a CNET article, The HTTP type of websites seem to leave Camasonians open to a big privacy vulnerability. Quoting an expert in that article,
Why is the city still using this HTTP on these controversial project websites? It feels deliberate at this point as the Camas home page uses HTTPS - so the city obviously knows how to do this work and are choosing to only enable it on certain sites on the same cityofcams.us domain.
Just about all of our neighbors have protected their citizens with this simple change, including the county. I couldn't find any similar secondary HTTP sites during a quick search of some of our neighbors.
Vancouver uses HTTPS
https://www.cityofvancouver.us/
Washougal uses HTTPS
https://www.cityofwashougal.us/
Clark County uses HTTTPS
https://www.clark.wa.gov/
Battle Ground uses HTTPS
https://www.cityofbg.org/
Ridgefield uses HTTPS
https://ridgefieldwa.us/
Yacolt has a population of 1500 and they use HTTPS
https://www.townofyacolt.com/